Buff MGs and ARs finally.

[woven bridge]

These kits have been useless since ICO, and I'm not saying this as someone who either a) dislikes the ICO (I love it) or b) wants to play as MG or AR,

They are all less useful than a rifle except the RPK74. Even the M27 is useless as an automatic rifle, although it performs fine as a rifle.

Suggestions
Buffs:
+Dramatically reduce recoil while point firing
+reduce recoil while ADSing all stances
+further reduce recoil while prone/bipoded
+Reduce base spread

Nerfs:
-decrease rate at which aim point converges around mouse point while moving forward and looking around
-decrease rate at which aim point follows mouse point
-increase aim point variance around mouse point
-consume stamina while ADSing unless prone or bipoded
-consume even more stamina if moving while ADSing

All the belt fed MGs have comical recoil while point firing. Recoil of ARs and GPMGs should be marginally less than infantry rifles in the same calibre.
Firing MGs while bipoded should not feel like indirect fire at 100 metres or less. Again, too much recoil and too much spread. I could live with the spread OR the recoil, but both in combination is just ridiculous.

At least one of them needs to be dramatically reduced. And I think I would prefer that the recoil comes down. Coming across a bipoded + prone MG position should feel like a huge obstacle. As an SL it should feel like something that demands my full attention to counter, not an afterthought like, “hey rifleman, shoot at in the general direction of that MG to throw off his fire.

Currently they are so inaccurate that even if you’re suppressed you can just counter-suppress to throw off his aim and the MG suppression will eventually stop and you can just pop him. This is pretty much how every interaction with an MG goes for me. MG gunners right now just aren’t even on my threat radar. I’m thinking about vehicles, mortars, grenadiers, marksmen, rally points, habs, but never machine guns

[woven bridge]

bump. I think these are good suggestions for rebalancing MGs. Would like to see them passed to devs for consideration.

[spare vector]

Speak for yourself, I love running around with my PKP making everyone duck

[dim orbit]

you god damn right dude

[winter furnace]

I would buff MG suppression, so sway won't be recovered so fast. Right now if you are suppressed with mg, your sway recovers in less than 0.5s. It should tike 5 times longer (and only for MG suppression). No extra blur or stuff, just much increased sway for longer time

[random blade]

Buffing suppression does not solve the issue. You can turn suppression up indefinitely, but as long as a bipoded MG is not significantly more deadly than an assault rifle, picking this kit is not worth the downsides.

[quasi thicket]

When I play DND and imbue my bow with confusion

[winter furnace]

Problem right now is you can shoot back at MG shooting you.

MG should have their place, and i'd rarher see if as "support tool to debuff enemies" rather than "full-auto beltfed lasergun on bipods"

[green helm]

This is kind of random since its a completely different genre but the way The Division implements machine guns into its games in contrast to assault rifles and other weapons is that instead of having your accuracy get reduced the longer you shoot machine guns actually get more accurate the longer and more consistently your shooting. The Division also implements suppression mechanics for its A.I by making it so if you shoot at an enemy in cover long enough they'll become "pinned" and won't peak out or move from cover until you stop shooting at them for a tad bit.

[neat shoal]

I agree with you. I also think that MG and AR should be combined and left on the 2nd line. There will simply be a choice between optics and mechanics/collimator. The presence of MG in 3 lines is not justified, because there may already be 3-4 more equipment.

They should also do something about the bipods, which are impossible to unfold in many places, although logically you should do it. Remove from folding when moving prone, the slightest movement prone and your bipod folds back...

[random blade]

Yes, the problem is that the enemy is ALIVE and can shoot back at you. If you try to make a weapon that can only suppress but not kill, it becomes worthless, because a rifleman can kill in the same situation, thus is a much superior kit choice. It is completely irrelevant how strong the suppression is, it makes no difference. The enemy is still alive and can either reposition and defeat the MG, or move on on complete another objective. Either way the MG did not neutralize the enemy. A rifleman could have neutralized the enemy, has no movement and positioning restrictions and has an ammo bag. Thus the rifleman is clearly the superior choice. The only way to make a MG viable in at least some situations is to make is so deadly that it compensates for the inability to play offensively and restriction of positions due to the dependency on the bipod.

[long pagoda]

bipods also need a fix. i feel like after every update they become more frustarting to place

[quasi thicket]

Bipods have not changed in a long time so idk where your getting that from

[long pagoda]

well i tried placing a bipod in various places across different maps and they didnt bipod very well

and some of these places definetly worked for bipods once

[quasi thicket]

Yea your right it sucks but it has always sucked the same amount

[green helm]

I mean one of the main purposes of an LMG is to suppress an area or target while another part of the squad works to move to a better position so they can suppress or destroy the target.

[random blade]

MGs suppress IRL because they are the most deadly weapon available to infantry, thus it can effectively convince the enemy on the receiving end that it would be suicidal to peak an MG while under fire. The game design decision to limit an MGs power mostly to inflicting aim shake and blur effectively convinces the enemy on the receiving end that he has realistic chances to win a direct firefight with his more accurate and thus more deadly assault rifle.

[quasi thicket]

I though guns were used to kill and not make peoples screen blurry?

[green helm]

the M249 saw has an MOA of 12, most other squad automatic weapons of closed bolt designs with longer barrels that will have improved accuracy over a short barrelled open bolt SAW that have gone into service such as RPKs, Colt LMGs, and L85s have been pulled from service and replaced with belt fed weapons like M249s and PKMs. Accuracy is still important to maintain psychological effect, someone hundreds of meters away landing shots on you is as concerning as someone with a PKM dumping a belt at you from the same range, but militaries have generally demonstrated a willingness to prioritize volume of fire and weight at the expense of accuracy, because when it comes down to it the SAWs psychological effect hinges on volume of fire.

[random blade]

High volume of fire leads to a higher hit chance and thus a higher lethality. Unlike in Squad where an assault rifle can achieve more hits faster than an MG.

[green helm]

if an enemies in cover and your shooting at them with an M249 generally your not going to get a good hit probability despite the volume, mostly on account of the fact that its a 12 MOA gun

When it comes down to it if you just want the enemy to percieve themselves as being in danger due to accuracy then you just use a rifle with a bipod and keep firing single shots at them. Again the automatic rifles that are closer to designated marksman rifles like the RPK, Colt LMG, and L85 would be perfect for that, they have very tight groupings and low recoil, but they still got replaced by squad automatic weapons and medium machine guns that are significantly less accurate because its just doesn't create an effective psychological effect to get someone to stop attempting to peak you, especailly when you cant even determine where someone might be shooting you from.

[dapper yarrow]

That's great and all, but it's Squad we're talking about. Nobody is scared to peak into something because they're likely not going to hit you if it's an MG and if they do hit you and you die it doesn't matter. You just respawn on the HAB.

The whole idea that MGs should be used for suppression in Squad is such a meme. Everyone knows where you're shooting from because the audio system is so simplistic and you're stuck in one place because of the bipod with insanely bright muzzle flashes each time you shoot. All someone has to do is move a few meters to the side, peak out, and kill you. We can't really look at this issue from a real life doctrine standpoint, we have to look at it from how it feels and plays in-game. Which, in-game they are super underpowered.

[green helm]

The entire point of changing the weapons is to make it so the weapons feel and play in a way that is somewhat inspired by actual doctrine. The entire point of implementing the ICO was to attempt to change the mechanics of the game to incentivise behavior somewhat representative of real doctrine so clearly the developers are trying to get machine guns to be used in a way representative of actual docterine, its just that the way they've gone about trying to do that hasn't been thought through that well.

suppression mechanics were implemented to compensate for the innability to represent the psychological effects of being shot at in game. If the debuffs from being suppressed are significant enough to stop players from immediately responding then they just need to buff the suppression mechanics one way or another. Over time players will have to change their behavior to reflect the changes and will learn to react in a different manner until eventually the gameplay loop has a more natural feel to it

I'm not saying that the SAWs and GPMGs have to be some sort of emplaced BB guns that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn 50 meters away I'm trying to stress that the issue is that the light machine guns and squad automatic weapons in game are so innacurate that it makes it impossible to even apply suppression effectively in the first place, much less kill someone at extended ranges.

[winter furnace]

Yes and no. MGs should be able to kill enemies, but should have their place and shouldn't have excessive letality.

Rifleman is a good all-arounder, but we have marksman which is better at longer ranges, and we have SMG/auto-carbine raiders, which are better close up. MG should be better from set up positions.

Thus i want better MG handling (not much, just stuff like not so excegarated recoil from hip-firs), but not too much. I would prefer MGs to have specialized mechanic like better and effective suppression, rather than full letality static lazerbeam

[winter furnace]

Basically my point, could not said better.

Badically, unwilingness to peak mg not threw letality, but inability to accuretly and quickly return fire while under MGs firs

[dapper yarrow]

Already a thing. Like I said though, all it takes is one person to move a few meters to the side and then they can easily return fire. Suppression buffs for MGs won't make them good or have them used for their desired use. MGs should be accurate and lethal. They are already limited in who can have them. The only way for them to really "suppress" people is if they are usable and good to kill with only then will people be afraid to peek an MG.

[round anchor]

The main issue isn't to add more suppression, the main issue is general handling, right now it's too heavily incentivized to try to find a bipod position, but the bipod system is rather poor and doesn't allow bipoding on surfaces that you should be able to, or it will clip you into the cover and restrict vision.

You're a bipod oriented weapon but with no prevalent areas to bipod. This ends up making you running around from cover to cover while in a fight as you desperately try to find cover that you can bipod where you wont be immediately shot. Often times when you finally find that angle everyone else is dead and you have to reorient again because the position you are in only has a few degrees of angle because of the poor bipod system.
The alternatives are either use the really annoying pistols until a more defensive situation, or sit back in a more reliable spot that may not be as supportive.

MGs need the ability to act on par with scoped rifles (think battle rifles, although battle rifles inherently play different so they should not be treated the same) in close and medium distance however they should perform better in some regards but worse in other, but this should be consistent. ARs and MGs can't lean or aim well with random acceptations like the RPK you can lean while the wormpool AR you can't, I think these weaknesses should be kept (or perhaps reworked but not removed) but in turn they should get better hip fire to gain fire superiority in certain situations. Cause otherwise you're gimped in 50% of situations where you aren't just sitting defensively

Also i feel they need to be made more accurate, many times i'll spray at a guy running in the open but all my bullets go around him, the only reason he's running in the open is because he knows he can get away with it, I do the same. If the guns can be relied on not to kill you while you are running in the open. then they need a accuracy buff regardless if it's realistic or not.

Times like these and many others are when i feel that i need a rifle over a mg, but i never feel i need a MG over a rifle, that's the broadest form of the issue, MGs don't do anything a m4 acog could do better.

Boils down to:
Rework the bipoding system to be quicker and more reliable.
Make ARs and MGs more usable below mid range perhaps by making them more hip fire capable or other buffs, but not by increasing suppression.
Perhaps make MGs more accurate

I think Apollo got everything right with the first message but feel the devs may not want to implement those changes, so I'm hoping for at least the bipod fixes and minor accuracy and recoil buffs

[woven bridge]

bump

[night umbra]

This absolutely

[stuck cobalt]

Hate to be that guy, but... gitgud.

Learn the proper techniques in employing MGs. I was slaying before ICO with MG kits, I'm still slaying with them now.

Positioning, patience (not shooting too early), "talking" the guns (if you're working along side another gunner), that kind of stuff.

I honestly felt very little difference in performance, granted a little more difficulty picking off individuals .

[round anchor]

IDK man, I top frag with ARs and MGs and yet still admit (complain) that the balancing is just poor and using them is needlessly cumbersome.
Leading them to be to reliant on squad mates and often too dependent on the situation to be desirable.
(among other things, it's so multifaceted that it's hard to describe but you should understand)
Like i think basically all of what I said(a year ago now, crazy, how did this thread get revived?) still holds, though they did buff MGs a little since then so it's less true, but still true.
At minimum, they need to update the bipod system.

https://tenor.com/view/i-am-once-again-asking-once-again-asking-once-again-asking-gif-7917205226486132164

I am once again asking for a bipod system update

[random blade]

When one kit requires the player to get into special positions to set up a bipod to be remotely combat effective, and then the player still has no significant advantage in lethality due to recoil and spread, then a rifle which offers the same or better lethality and works reliably in all situations without setting up a bipod is objectively the better weapon. This has nothing to do with skill. I could probably play an entire game knife only and have a better k/d than half of the team, that does not make the knife a good weapon.
The current balance of the MG kits makes no sense, neither from a realism nor from a game design perspective. When a kit comes with such significant disadvantages as the bipod dependency, it needs to have equally significant advantages to compensate, otherwise picking this kit is just a liability for the team.

[round anchor]

You'll see squad leads not let people play these roles because a LAT, medic or rifleman are more versatile while maintaining the same lethality.
Like you cant have your MG do the rifles job good enough, but you can have the rifle do the MGs job good enough.
The only time they are better is certain specific situational niches

[spare karma]

After ICO, there are only three valid MG kits. The RPK/M27 IAR (the non traditional autorifle kits) and the MG3 (high RoF offsets the bad recoil).

Suppression as a game mechanic is neither fun nor effective. Squad is a game about inflicting ticket losses, and any other kit is better in this regard. Since there is no plan to make death more punishing. MGs/ARs need to be effective at killing. The threat of death means nothing when you instantly teleport to a HAB near the active cap, and continue on your merry way.

Bipod mechanics have been gutted to the point where you either cannot bipod on a seemingly flat surface. Or the bipod deploys in a way that exposes yourself so horribly, or your barrel gets blocked. The equivalent comparison would be like saying, LAT kits have this bug when 50% of the time the warhead doesn't detonate.

[round anchor]

I have a collection of screenshots, it crazy how much it's a issue

[spare karma]

Anyways, even if suppression was good as a mechanic. And did give really bad circumstances. The exchange for one person to suppress an area, just runs into the same pre ICO problem of a random guy popping a headshot because he's not suppressed.

Killing is more instantenous of a solution to a hostile squad. If you are stuck suppressing, you are more vulnerable to being killed.

[sonic onyx]

Not to mention cartoonish muzzle flash that makes concealment basically impossible.

[stuck cobalt]

It's almost like it's semi-realistic or something 😂

A lone machine gunner shouldn't stand a chance in most fights. It draws attention, and the characteristics of the gun destroys your situational awareness as soon a you let out a burst.

I find the biggest problem for most players is the desire to setup on a vantage point so they can have maximal arcs of fire. Well as the saying goes, if you can see everyone, everyone can see you. An MG is best setup in a position with very narrow arcs of fire, centred on natural paths and choke points.

[random blade]

By pointing out how restrictive MG positioning is to achieve anything but die instantly, you actually support the complaints about this kit that were made in this thread.

[spare karma]

Full circle achieved.

[woven bridge]

I don't use MG kits at all, ever. The original post was written with the perspective of SLing. Pre-ICO, I was terrified of MGs and regularly got my whole squad wiped by em. Now, it just never happens and they're not even on my threat radar.

[round anchor]

a new one to the collection

even better is that the murder hole on the right didn't work well, nor did on the other boxes

[dim orbit]

september of 2023, ico just released...